What We're Up To - Striving to strengthen communities, support the environment and save local wildlife.

Flight of the Gibbon has a variety of Conservation projects that we are working on right now! You will be surprised how busy our conservation team is!

Community Projects

Environmental Projects

Wildlife Projects

Community Projects

Local Staff Project:

Most of the staff you will meet at Flight of the Gibbon in Chiang Mai are from the local community. We have established successful training programs in the areas where we operate, which means that we always offer jobs to the local villagers first before advertising them elsewhere.

Ethical Sourcing Project:

We’re committed to buying and serving the highest quality, responsibly grown, ethically traded food and coffee to help create a better future for local farmers. The rice is farmed organically and served to you when you enjoy your meal at our restaurant.

Kitchen Rotation Project:

The food you eat at Flight of the Gibbon is not only locally sourced, but it’s also prepared by a team of locals from Mae Kampong Village. We have four such teams on a rotating roster and every 52 days the teams will swap out. This model allows local mothers, fathers, grandparents and housewives a chance to work and earn money locally and to share this work amongst the entire community so everyone benefits.

Homestay Rotation Project:

If you book a multi-day tour with Flight of the Gibbon you will be offered a chance to homestay in Mae Kampong Village. Thanks to our rotating roster of guest homes where you’re able to stay, it gives everyone in the community a chance to earn a little extra money, interact with foreigners and practice their English. This community-based tourism initiative benefits everybody and enables you to enjoy a truly authentic homestay experience.

Orphan and Underprivileged Project:

Flight of the Gibbon offers free Ziplining experiences for orphans and underprivileged children. As part of the project, children also learn about the flora and fauna as they enjoy the beautiful scenery of Mae Kampong. Seeing the big smiles on the children’s faces makes us especially proud to support this initiative.

Hunter Reform Project:

Hunting in rural areas and forests was once a way of life in Thailand, but with the reduction in wildlife populations and some species on the endangered list, attitudes have changed. However, some poorer villagers still hunt for food or for financial benefit. Flight of the Gibbon has set up a Forest Guard project to employ these villagers so that they no longer have to hunt. Instead, they now use their unique knowledge to protect the forest and the animals who live there.

Environmental Projects

Tree Planting

Flight of the Gibbon’s foremost conservation priority is reforestation. Without the forests, there is no habitat for wildlife to live. Thailand’s forests are constantly under threat by burning and logging, and it is estimated that only 10-11% of Thailand’s primary forests remain. We want to help turn this around. We host numerous tree planting events every year to provide a habitat where wildlife can return and not just survive, but thrive.

Flight of the Gibbon conducted its first tree planting event in 2008 starting small with just 2,000 saplings. Fast forward to 2016, we planted 26,000 saplings over four events in under six months. We invite locals and anyone who is interested to join in with our tree planting events. We also make sure to follow up on these projects regularly with seedling aftercare, weeding and fertilizing.

Mangrove Planting and Reforestation

This exciting initiative began in 2018 where Flight of the Gibbon teamed up with the Royal Thai Navy Seals to regenerate mangrove forest ecosystems in areas where they have previously existed. These mangrove projects are very complicated taking months of planning and organization however our first project was a huge success, which resulted in the planting of hundreds of saplings off the coast of Sattahip in the Gulf of Thailand.

We now intend to make this a yearly event the same as our tree planting events, we hope to increase the coverage of mangrove forests to restore this beautiful and intricate ecosystem as they support a variety of marine wildlife and organisms, as well as help to prevent coastal erosion. Please read details about our first event and the techniques used for planting HERE and keep up to date with our latest events HERE.

Supporting Local Villages, Universities and NGOs

Flight of the Gibbon is passionate about supporting local communities and we regularly donate money to support various projects that benefit local villages. Projects we have helped to fund include making fire breaks, supporting trash clean up days and helping to renovate local temples. We also donate to local universities and have assisted with some really cool projects such as research on forest restoration using drones with FORRU (Forest Restoration Research Unit). We donate to various NGOs and co-funded the “Conservation Asia Conference” at the National University of Singapore where we also sponsor and support internships for students.

Wildlife Projects

Gibbon Rehabilitation and Release

Our very first conservation project of gibbon rehabilitation and release was a stunning success with our mating gibbons producing two offspring. The gibbon family now lives happily in the forest around our Chiang Mai Zipline course. When you come to enjoy our Zipline course in Chiang Mai you may be lucky enough to catch sight of these amazing animals as they frolic in the trees or go about their daily routine.

Camera Trap Program

To evaluate the biodiversity of the local wildlife, Flight of the Gibbon have set up a network of camera traps in the forest around Mae Kampong (Chiang Mai), Chae Sorn National Park (Chiang Mai) and Chompoo Wildlife Reserve in Chonburi. We are hoping to collect enough data to make a sample estimate of each species’ population in each area. We can then make these evaluations regularly to gauge how well each species is doing.

We have already enjoyed fantastic success and captured footage of Leopard Cats, Wild Boar, Yellow-Throated Martens, Asian Palm Civets, Large Indian Civets, Barking Deer, Crab Eating Mongoose, and more. However, we have also discovered disturbing footage of hunters with rifles wearing face masks, and our camera traps have been blocked or sabotaged several times. You can see some of our great wildlife videos on a YouTube channel that we have set up for the purpose. www.youtube.com/FlightoftheGibbon

Stay in touch

Every now and then we’ll send you our latest news and offers.

One of the Highlights of our Thailand Trip!

This was one of our highlights from Thailand. When we booked it we were worried it was overpriced but it was definitely worth every penny! There were loads of zipwires where you see the jungle in all its glory. We saw stunning views while flying through the air. We saw gibbons which was great and our three sky rangers were brilliant...